Culture in Lisbon
A Guide to the Fascinating Cultural Scene of Lisbon PortugalCulture in Lisbon, now the story really begins. Every stone of Lisbon is cultural. Lisbon is a paradise for artistic inspiration. The city is poetic, musical, artistic, theatrical, cinematographic. Every area has it's unique atmosphere, its Venues, its Galleries, it's Poet. Every Poet and Novelist has his or her own Lisbon. The great Fado singers Amalia and Mariza have Lisbon in their bones. The incomparable music group Madredeus are named after a part of the city. Pessoa the enigmatic poet still takes coffee with tourists and locals. 
Lisbon City of Inspiration.Northern European Filmakers Wim Wenders and Alain Tanner weave stories of loss and love into these city streets. Saramargo the nobel prize winner bases his fables of shifting realities in Lisbon's past. Paula Rego's astonishing paintings come from her childhood memories in and around Lisbon. Novelists Richrd Zimler and Robert Wilson base their historical thrillers in the shadows of the city.There are so many facinating stories to tell.
The difficulty is where to begin.
Lisbon Cinema and The Portuguese Film Scene
Culture in Lisbon - April Captains - the story of the carnation revolution was the most expensive Portuguese film ever made. The Portuguese are rightfully proud of their Cinema tradition. One of the first Portuguese films was a documentary on the newly built Avenida de Liberdade in 1898. Interestingly Liberdade became a home of the most elegant and best Portuguese Cinemas like Sao Jorge and Eden. Going to the cinema in Portugal was always different. A formal ritual with a certain style. There is always an interval when ancient adverts are sometimes displayed on a huge safety curtain. Now there are more out of town cinemas but the Cinemateca Portuguesa, Sao Jorge, Medeia Cinemas and Londres in Avenida Roma, show really good films and retain a movie loving atmosphere. Portuguese FilmsPortuguese films have developed in a parallel universe from mainstream film. The limited distribution possibilities have always restricted budgets and a style has developed which is intimate, dark, melancholy. Some directors like Antonio Pedro Vasconcelas have borrowed from American Film Noir others like Manoel de Olivera and Joao Botelho have taken a more personal route. Portuguese films are often deeply serious , they are sometimes humourous and usuaully focus on very human stories. A lost child, a group of kids on the run, misfits immigrants people trying to survive. Lisbon is a frequent subject as in one of the most famous films of recent times Alice in which a father searches for his lost daughter filming the city as he searches for traces of her. There are also great documentaries and animations of distinction like A Suspeita - Suspicion by José Miguel Ribeiro. Four characters on a journey to the countryside and one of them is sure to be the murderer !
Culture in Lisbon. Scene from A Suspeita one of the most awarded Portuguese Animation films ever made. Culture-in-Lisbon The Art SceneLisbon is Visual. A sight to inspire a work of art. A city made to be painted and photographed. Not surprising then that there is a huge Art scene in Lisbon. So many fantastic Museums of Art from ancient to Modern Times. Exquisite collections of porcelain and jewelery in Art deco houses. Public Art all over the city and underground - the Metro is itself a Museum. The ordinary houses of the city are decorated with tiles and beautiful iron work. Small galleries abound in the Chiado, Barrio Alto and Santos areas. Many outstanding 20th century artists Almada Negreiros, Carlos Botelho, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva originated here. One of the greatest painters alive today Paula Rego was brought up just outside the city. Although she is now based in London she spends a lot of time in Lisbon and the city and her memories of her childhood here live on in her great narrative paintings.You can see her work in the modern art collections of Belem and Gulbenkian centrepieces of Culture in Lisbon. September 2009. A fantastic new museum has opened in Cascais just thirty minutes from the centre of Lisbon. The Casa das Historias is a breathtaking retrospective of the work of one of the greatest artists of our time in a beautiful new purpose built museum.
Culture in Lisbon - Statue in Picoas Station. The metro is full of art - here a Celebration of Fertility surprises us in the heart of busy modern Lisbon. Culture in Lisbon - Music
Camané - The Prince of Fado - singing in Oeiras Gardens to celebrate the June Festivals of 2009 Lisbon is full of music. The colonial past has brought a vast array of musical styles to Lisbon and the city has become home to musicians of different traditions. Brazilian, African Rock, Jazz, Classical. But there is one style above all that is interwoven with the cities very identity. Fado. Lisbon fado. Perhaps the world's most neglected musical style. Fado is a jewel. Lyrical, Melodic, Romantic. It's roots are uncertain but like the city of Lisbon, a mixture of cultures, Arabic, European, African. Fado is to Lisbon as Tango is Buenas Aires. To really know Lisbon you have to know Fado. Fortunately, the city is full of opportunities to experience this soulful evocative music. Now Fado is on the world stage with the success of Amalia Rodrigues, Madredeus, Marisa and recently the film by Carlos Saura, but Lisbon will always be home to this music. It's inspiration and it's anchor. Portuguese Music Lisbon BooksPortugal has a vast and multilayered literary tradition, since the great epic of Camoes Luciads,celebrating the discoveries, writers have been revealing the secrets at the heart of the Portuguese people. Lisbon has an intense almost hypnotic power over novelists, poets, dramatists. The city is evocative mysterious, it's historic past suggests human stories, romance and intrigue. Pessoa the great modernist poet of Lisbon found inspiration in the minute details of living and working in the city. Saramargo the nobel prize winner wrote of the historical siege of the city in the 12th Century. Antonio Lobo Antunes, to many the greatest modern Portuguese writer, reveals the human stories of modern Lisbon.These Lisbon writers are joined by outsiders who come to the city and fall under it's spell, John Le Carré, Richard Zimler, Pascal Mercier, Robert Wilson. Lisbon fires the imagination, writers are seduced and beguiled, finding inspiration in a past, always present in this city, and the powerful human stories of those who walk it's streets. Culture in Lisbon top Enjoying Lisbon Lisbon Sights homepage Lisbon Museums Magical Lisbon Lisbon Monuments Lisbon food Lisbon Restaurants
|
